Dont buy Big Techs we need to steal to beat China in AI bull

Big Tech wants to use other people’s work to make big money — and not pay.Worse, it’s hoping to get Washington to kosherize this theft as supposedly in the national interest.The specific issue at hand is the use of copyrighted material to train AI: The law is clear that techies looking to do that must pay for it.A federal court ruling in Thomson Reuters v.

ROSS last month reaffirmed that understanding: Ross Intelligence, Inc.used Thomson’s Westlaw product to train its own legal research programs, claiming it was covered under the “fair use” doctrine for free use of others’ intellectual property.The Third Circuit didn’t buy that: “Fair use” covers (for example), us quoting a New York Times editorial for the purpose of debunking it, or a critic quoting a song from a musical to explain why the show is great or dreadful.It does not cover using someone’s intellectual property in order to compete with them.In the wake of that decision, Google and OpenAI each wrote the White House urging a rollback of copyright law as part of an “action plan” for boosting US development of AI; otherwise, goes the claim, China might win the AI race.No doubt they’d like exemptions from every other inconvenient law — along with free electricity, and unpaid use of other people’s real estate: It’s all about beating Beijing!Though the president tapped Silicon Valley insider David Sacks as his AI czar, we expect Team Trump as a whole to see through this bull: Investment cash is flowing to AI developers by the billions; they can afford to pay a fair price for other people’s work product.Indeed, Post parent company News Corp last year inked a deal, reportedly for $250 million (and with firm intellectual-property protections), to license some content to OpenAI.Meanwhile, The New York Times is suing ChatGPT’s maker for copyright infringement, as Alden Global Capital (which owns the Daily News, Denver Post, Chicago Tribune and other papers) pursues its own case...